Nap-ercise Is The Gym Class You’ve Been Holding Out For

It’s no secret that exercise is the bee’s flamin’ knees. It enhances your flexibility, decreases your chance of pesky heart-related diseases, and unleashes a metric fuckton of endorphins with nary an eccy pill in sight.

Gyms, on the other hand, are little more than narcissistic, bacteria-ridden hellholes, where balls of muscle in ‘Tough Mudder’ singlets yell at mirrors and pull drop-squats to the sound of Chainsmokers.

Jogging is great – sure, fine. But you know what’s even better than running on a treadmill like an out-of-breath hamster on a wheel, trying feebly to stave off your inevitable death? Havin’ a snooze.

In the fast-twitch, red-eyed rat race that is 2017, the power nap is a vastly under appreciated lifestyle exercise. There’s too much emphasis on ‘working out’ and ‘staying fit’, in my extremely unfit opinion, not enough emphasis on lying down and resting your weary bones.

Well no longer: because a gym in the UK is swapping out mats for mattresses and rolling out a groundbreaking new class that requires punters to do little more than sleep.

‘Napercise’ encourages gym-goers to kick off the Reeboks, strap on the eye-mask and settle in under the covers to examine the backs of their eyelids for periods of 45 minutes at a time. The so-called ’40 Winks Workout’ includes atmospheric music and controlled temperatures – all geared towards helping you get that extra little bit of shut-eye.

As someone who dozed off in a yoga class just last week, this prospect is a dream come true. But the perks go far beyond the promise of copping a snooze whilst at the gym.

Based on academic studies espousing the mental and physical health benefits of daytime kips, Napercise’s founding philosophy aims to “reinvigorate the mind, improve moods and even burn the odd calorie.” The class was launched as a response to statistics which found “86 percent of parents [in the UK] admitting to suffering from fatigue,” with almost one in five admitting to having a cheeky nap at work and one in twenty forgetting to pick up the kids from school.

On a broader scale, the consequences of sleep deprivation could range anywhere from slight feelings of crotchetiness to violent episodes of road rage and Brexit (citation needed).

“Sleep is a lot more important than people realise,” says sleep expert Kathryn Pinkham. “We tend to focus on the short-term effects such as being tired or lacking concentration, but it is also essential for our long-term physical and mental wellbeing too.

“When we are sleep deprived we lack the energy to exercise regularly, and also the mental clarity to make good decisions about the food we eat, which could negatively impact our physical health in the long-run.”